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scruples?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I
quite understand. I’ve done the same thing myself. I suppose if the scruples I’ve
overcome in my time were laid end to end, they would reach from London to
Glasgow. Ah, Pongo,’ said Lord Ickenham, as his nephew appeared in the doorway.
‘Anything to report?’
    ‘Not a
thing. Not a single female as far as the eye could reach. I’ll tell you what
occurred to me, Bill, as I was scanning the horizon.’
    ‘Probably
the very thing that has just occurred to me,’ said Lord Ickenham. ‘You were
thinking that Lady Constance must have changed her mind about going to
Shrewsbury for that hair-do.’
    ‘That’s
right. And with her on the premises, the popsy — ‘
    Bill’s
rugged features registered displeasure.
    ‘I wish
you wouldn’t call her a popsy.’
    ‘With
her on the premises, your ball of worsted would naturally be unable to make her
getaway. You’ll probably receive a letter tomorrow explaining the situation and
making arrangements for the next fixture.’
    ‘Yes,
that must be it,’ said Bill, brightening a little. ‘Though you’d have thought
she would have wired,’ he added, sinking into the depths again.
    Lord
Ickenham patted his burly shoulder paternally.
    ‘My
dear chap! How could she? The Market Blandings post office is two miles from
the castle and, as Pongo says, her every movement is watched. She’ll be lucky
if she gets so much as a letter through the lines without having it steamed
open and intercepted. If I were you, I wouldn’t worry for a moment.’
    ‘I’ll
try not to,’ said Bill, heaving a sigh that shook the room. ‘Well, anyway,
there’s no sense in hanging around here. This place gives me the creeps. Thanks
for coming along, Pongo. Thanks for coming along, Lord Ickenham. Sorry your
time was wasted.’
    ‘My
dear fellow, time is never wasted when it is passed in pleasant company.’
    ‘No.
No. There’s that, of course. Well, I’ll be off.’
    As the
door closed behind him, Lord Ickenham sighed, not so vigorously as Bill had
done but with a wealth of compassion. He mourned in spirit for the young
cleric.
    ‘Too
bad,’ he said. ‘It is always difficult for a bridegroom to key himself up to
going through the wedding ceremony, an ordeal that taxes the stoutest, and when
he’s done it and the bride doesn’t meet him half way, the iron enters into the
soul pretty deeply. And no knowing when the vigilance of the authorities will
be relaxed again, I suppose, if ever. You don’t make prison breaks easily when
Connie is holding the jailer’s keys.’
    Pongo
nodded. He, too, mourned in spirit for his stricken friend.
    ‘No,’
he said. ‘I’m afraid Bill’s in a spot. And what makes the situation stickier is
that Archie Gilpin’s at Blandings.’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘The
Duke of Dunstable’s nephew.’
    ‘Ricky Gilpin’s
brother?’
    ‘That’s
right. You ever met him?’
    ‘Never.
I know Dunstable, of course, and I know Ricky, but this Archibald is a sealed
book to me. Who told you he was at Blandings?’
    ‘He
did. In person. I ran into him yesterday and he said he was off there on the
afternoon train. Pretty sinister, it seemed to me.’
    ‘Why is
that?’
    ‘Well,
dash it, there he’ll be closeted with the girl, and who knows she won’t decide
to switch from Bill to him? He’s a very good-looking bloke. Which you can’t say
Bill is.’
    ‘No, I
would call Bill’s an interesting rather than a beautiful face. He reminds me a
little of one of my colleagues on the Wyoming ranch where I held a salaried
position in my younger days as a cow-puncher, of whom another of my colleagues,
a gifted phrasemaker, said that he had a face that would stop a clock. No doubt
Bill has stopped dozens. But surely the little Myra I used to wrap in a bath
towel and dandle on my knee can’t have grown up into the sort of girl who
attaches all that importance to looks.’
    ‘You
never know. Girls do go for the finely-chiselled. And apart from his looks,